The Catalan gaming empire Cirsa will go public in July.

BarcelonaIt's been over a year since the Catalan gaming empire Cirsa reactivated its efforts to go public, and now these intentions have a date. The company—owned by the US fund Blackstone—announced its entry into the stock market this Wednesday, with trading scheduled for July.

Specifically, the transaction will be carried out through a subscription offering for new ordinary shares to raise €400 million, with which Cirsa aims to accelerate its growth strategy and reduce debt. In other words, there will be an initial capital increase. In addition, the casino and slot machine company also plans to place a sale offer of approximately €60 million, intended "solely" to cover taxes and other expenses associated with the restructuring of management stakes.

The size of this IPO transaction has diminished compared to the one proposed in the spring of last year, in which Cirsa hoped to raise between €700 million and €1 billion. Since then, Blackstone has reduced the company's debt by €240 million through a bond issue. Although there had been rumors for some time about how the group was preparing for this move to the stock market, according to the newspaper Expansion, the operation was halted in April due to the market instability caused by the Donald Trump administration in the United States.

Revenue improvement

In the statement sent this Wednesday regarding its intention to go public, the group highlighted that it has seen 67 consecutive months of EBITDA growth (excluding periods affected by the COVID-19 pandemic). The Terrassa-based group recorded operating income of €2.15 billion, up €2.15 million from EBITDA of €699 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 11%. Cirsa is a multinational company operating in 11 countries and leading this sector in markets such as Spain, Italy, Morocco, and in Latin America. It has belonged to Blackstone since 2018, when the Lao family – Manuel Lao was then president and his son, vice president – sold their entire business, except for the one they had in Argentina, for 2.4 billion euros. In fact, the businessman, who has been in business at times the richest man in Catalonia, had been looking to sell the company or list it on the stock market for some time. He opted for the former, and now, eight years later, Cirsa will eventually become a listed company.